The Russian financial monitoring agency Rosfinmonitoring has included ex-World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov on its list of “terrorists and extremists”. Those on the list are restricted in their banking activities and must be approved each time they access their accounts, on Wednesday, the 6th of March, reports Politico.
Kasparov expressed his delight, calling the title “an honour that says more about Putin’s fascist regime than about me”.
“Today would be a good day to put Russia, Putin and all his cronies on the list of sponsors of terrorism,”
he added, referring to the US list of countries found to have “repeatedly provided support to international terrorism”.
After his chess career ended in 2005, Garry Kasparov became Russian opposition activist. Facing the threat of persecution, he left the country in 2013. Kasparov has become one of the most vocal critics in exile of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
In his 2015 book “Winter is Coming”, he argued that the efforts of Putin and other “enemies of the free world” must be stopped.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the chess player, together with other public figures, founded the Anti-War Committee, calling on the international community to declare Russian leaders “war criminals”.
In May of the same year, the Russian Ministry of Justice put Kasparov on a list of “foreign agents”, which mostly includes critics of the Kremlin who are closely monitored by the Russian authorities.
Also read: VIDEO | Ukraine says it damages Russian Black Sea Fleet ship near Crimea
Follow us on Facebook and X!